This house is quieter than I thought it was. It might be the winter, the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside, the warm pressure pushing out against the doors, filling the space between the walls. Our new heater has sealed us into a bubble. I have been becoming more aware of this quiet in here. It snuck up on me, that the squeaks and cracks in our floorboards ceased. And I can sit on the couch and strain my ears and hear the outside world press in through the high drifts of snow and the silence of my house press out, defending.
From inside I am watching the outside world. From far away, I can watch my home. It is quiet here, but there... There: there are canons and marching bands, and cellos and poets and rock stars, and audio-visual equipment that extends the human voice past fifty feet, past a hundred feet, past dozens of city blocks, and past century old monuments that sit in silence. The voice of my old country reaches me through the cable and through wireless networks and through my computer. It penetrates my snowy bunker and here I am at my dining room table, listening to it coming. The voice of my country: noise and hope, always noise and hope.
(And I'm crying, because I hate hope. I hate its promises and disappointments. I hate the way it makes you feel like a sucker. I hate the way I love its calm relief and joy.)
It's a good day, a beautiful day. A cold and clear day. A hard day -- a day for for crying and champagne. A day to let go of the old and to let go of your fear of hope.
It is kind of like New Year's Eve. So I'm spending it like I like to spend New Year's: with a warm (and quiet) house, with a glass of something bubbly, with a uncynical and vulnerable and perhaps foolish desire to try again.
